I like dynamos, many of them
One of my favourite bands from the states the last year is So Many Dynamos. This is a cute little four-piece progressive, mathematical, but still kind of poppy and soft hardcore act from St. Louis, Missour. You should really check out their latest album called Flashlights and order it from here. So Many Dynamos really represents a kind of music that have given me a lot of influences the last years, they also list some of their main influences to be Battles, Weezer, At the drive-in and Cinemechanica and these are also great influences for us in Merlin. Its always interesting to read about people you are influenced by and I therefore found it quite inspiring that the Dynamos have their own studio and touring blog, check it out over here.
Please try the fork!
Our excellent drummer, beatbox-Maggie, is also doing the drums (and vocals) in another excellent band called Fork. Their debut album is called Harlekin and is out this week. Check out a brand new song on their myspace and go to one of their shows the following weeks!
by:Larm 2009, here we come!
We have been picked out to play at by:Larm 19-21.february 2009, a yearly festival for up-and-coming, mainly norwegian, bands. We are really looking forward to share stage with some of the most talented new norwegian bands! Some of my personal favourites are Manatee Racket, Snöras, Simon Says No!, Syntax TerrOrkester, Pony the Pirate and The Megaphonic Thrift. Check out http://www.bylarm.no for more information about by:larm in general and more about only us here: http://www.bylarm.no/nor/artists/2684
Merlin Tees!
New “Face in the Basement” Merlin tees in 3 colors: black, red & blue and 3 sizes: small, medium & large. The price is NOK 150,- or $30 US including shipping. The price excluding shipping (for you local Oslo people) is 120,-.
We’re going to do this the easy way. If you would like to order a tee, just send an e-mail to merch {at} merlincore {dot} com and let us know the colour and size you would like (plus your address). We’ll give you payment instructions and send the t-shirt off within 1-3 days. Alternatively, add a comment to this blog entry or send us a Twitter-message @merlincore and we’ll take it from there!
If you’d like a tee, then it’s probably smart to be quick because the numbers are very limited!
Update 1: Medium red sold out.
Update 2: Medium blue sold out.
death by fear of gods on the eve of the smallest of them
Part two : a sticker can stick to a life
a policeoffice, best described in the numerous semi-actionmovies of the nineties and our own decade
act one : smell whats cooking
He lays down the phone and peels of the sticker saying `pigfest` next to the phone, These last few weeks have seen the habit of trying to make the corners of it stick to the desk as the rest has done before meeting the remainder of the lunch in his trashcan. The moment, as they said is finally here. He grabs his jacket and turns of the lights and locks the door. These last few weeks have seen him leave hour after the other employees. No one tries to change this.. Officer Charles defines the image of a man who had it all, but lost it all to a bottle and a devil with a red dress who promised him the world in a time where he could not see that he allready had it. His wife and two daughters standing as proof of it. He was allowed to call the devil in the red dress whatever he wanted, but she was as far away now as his family.. The bottle however, was only moments away.
She met him in the door and his first thoughts where about how she resembled a certain devil in a red dress. the smell of food drew his thoughts away and he blessed her for her cooking. She made numerous points about it for good reason. Her rice and turkey could make a statue move. He sat down and saw a glass of something resembling Laphroig. Bless her heart. As she started walking and talking around the room. The food, drink, her figure and her well chosen words made him once again dream of a world he knew all to well he had no ability to see no more.
act three : there is a bridge to be built from the edge of the world
the room is lit only by a thin ray of light emerging from between shut curtains. It hits a bed where something is moving. this is all one sees (think cartoonish)
the man sits up and sees to his amusement that his tshirt is still soaking. Purely from his own tears. It fills him with reason and the reassurance that this is really real. His determination does not come from a dream or wishfull thougts. This is going to happen. Now and forever.
the man gets up and sneaks out the door of the room in the motel he never payed for. he finds a road and start to walk on it. Out of this story and out where we can never find him. Seconds before we would have lost sight of him he strays of the road and walks of into something we cant see. looks like a forest.
This whole act up untill this point has only the sound of air and Caramel prisoners
the music fades but the picture lingers. Instead of credits roll a car comes driving down the road just abandoned by the man and the car pulls into the motel. While the woman starts searching the rooms the man wearing a battered police uniform walks into the main hall and pulls the receptionist over the counter and starts punching him and shouting about a man with to much knowledge. The poor vageslave has no information at all and as the focus goes back to the woman who has now found the room she is sure he has squatted this night, a gun goes of and several people wake up from theire dreams thinking as they wake up that cheap motels suck. The couple leaves in a hurry and a cloud of dust.
Norwegian Wood - Full Concert!
A Game of Domino During The Murder at Babylon
Merlin is happy to present you with two brand new songs: A Game of Domino and Murder at Babylon! You can listen to them by pressing play next to the song titles to the right of this article, by going to our MySpace page or by downloading them in high quality right here. If you want to read the lyrics, click “Read more” below! We’d love to hear what you think, so if you want to drop us a comment in this blog, we’d be happy to hear from you.
In other news, Merlin will be performing at the prestigious Norwegian Wood festival Saturday 14th of June at 2:45pm (CET), if you want to see the show, it will be broadcast live at www.nrk.no/urort. Some time in the future we would also like to perform in the brand new opera building of Oslo, like PJ Harvey did with such a great style.
Urørt interviews
Part 1: can be downloaded here.
Part 2: can be downloaded here.
Part 3: can be downloaded here.
Part 4: can be downloaded here.
Sorry to all our non-Norwegian-speaking friends!
Merlin is Ukas Urørt!
For those who don’t know what Urørt is, it is both a site where bands can share their music with others and also a radio program on NRK P3 (Norwegian National Radio) where the producers of the show play songs that they like from the Urørt site. In addition to this, every week they pick one band that they wish to single out and promote more heavily, and this week this honour was given to us. This includes playing an interview + “Write Riot Right” on the radio every night this week. We are of course stoked about this, as it brings our music to a much greater audience.
You can read the article about us here in Norwegian, and also check out a new press photo on the same site. We will translate the text into English at the next free moment, but for now you can see if you can make sense of the Google translation!
So if you tune in to NRK P3’s Urørt at around 10pm-10:30pm, you can hear us chat away and completely unsuccessfully play our theremin on the air :) Next week, we’ll be playlisted on Urørt in association with the Norwegian Wood concert, so you can hear us then too.
In other news, we have sent two new songs to be mastered at Cuttingroom in Sweden, so hopefully there should be some new music from us the beginning of next week!
Thank you for the votes (revisited)!
Yet again - we owe you all a huge thank you for voting for us in the Underwood competition (see directly below)! As a consequence, Merlin is playing Saturday 14th of June at Norwegian Wood! That’s right, we were one of the top 4 bands with the highest amount of votes. It’s going to be quite an experience playing for 3000-4000 people, one that we will make sure to write about so watch this space. If you happen to be in the Oslo area the next few months, you can catch us playing a few shows around town. Look on the right column of this place for details!
In other news, this weekend we will be mixing two of the songs we recorded during our previous stay in the studio, so you’ll get to hear some new music from us in the very beginning of June.